Brian Harrington – Knots in Massachusetts

Manomet Senior Scientist Brian Harrington has been studying the distribution and coastal ecology of shorebirds since 1972, focusing on migration and southern South American wintering areas. Brian, working with hundreds of cooperators, has led research on shorebird use of coastal habitat at migration stopover sites, as well as identifying major migration sites of shorebirds throughout the United States and southern Western Hemisphere nations. Much of his research has focused on the Red Knot, which illustrates many of the conservation issues he has studied. His book, The Flight of the Red Knot, published in 1996, chronicles the migratory flight of the far-flung Red Knots, from the Arctic Circle to the tip of South America and back, and has been called “an informative and wonderfully written account of an ornithological marvel.”

Brian is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, and holds an M.A. in zoology from the University of South Florida. He has been lead instructor in numerous Shorebird Management Training Workshops, worked with the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network to develop programs for providing habitats essential to shorebirds, and partnered with the U.S. and Canadian Wildlife Services and the U.S.G.S to examine shorebird population changes in shorebirds over the past two decades. He recently has focused research on growing habitat conflicts between human recreation and shorebird habitat needs in coastal regions.